I, uhh... Well, you see... Erm... That is, to say... Uhm...Cappen? Do you often shoot at your sister?
Bah! So what if I do? Deal with it.
-
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Completed Let's play Silent Storm!
- Thread starter Azira
- Start date
Bah! So what if I do? Deal with it.
UncleJimb0
Educated
Waiting patiently 
64bit, names in the 166xxx range. So far, animation speeds have been a non-issue. I might apply the faster enemy animations mod, but that hasn't bothered me yet.
Oh, and as to Sentinels, it's definetely worth a purchase. I plan on LPing that as well, once this LP is done. I'm not sure I'll do the allies path here in Silent Storm, but considering it. Sentinels is definitely next up on my plate.
Oh, and as to Sentinels, it's definetely worth a purchase. I plan on LPing that as well, once this LP is done. I'm not sure I'll do the allies path here in Silent Storm, but considering it. Sentinels is definitely next up on my plate.
Last mission was short, this one's even shorter. Hence an update already. 
Short, but sweet. Even a simple mission like that I manage to fuck up.
I hope to improve..
We dive straight into the next mission.
We appear at the edge of a clearing, Stevens told us last that this might be an ambush, and our objectives are hidden to us. Wary, everyone enters hiding, then I make a mistake and split the team..
I spot these two allied mujahedin, bedecked in grenades and decide to make them our priority targets. That might sound wise enough strategically, but I sent Loti and WetWo against them and had the rest of the team looking elsewhere.
WetWo could've handled all alone:
I had at this point sent Loti back and to the other side of the road, supported by Cappen alone. WetWo was making his way through the foliage on the west side of the road when he spotted our quarry.
We just need to take down the officer, grab his documents and then we can leave. Simple, eh?
WetWo lays him low.
Very easy going so far. Only minor wounds sustained. Then I have Loti scout ahead, too far ahead.
*boom*
SMG full auto to the face. She was intercepted by 4 allied soldiers, three of them with SMGs.
Shortly after this, Kodex was painted by two rifle-wielding soldiers, and, well.
I might try to explain this away with being distracted by lower back pain (which wouldn't be untrue), but the sad fact is that I got impatient. Impatient while playing a 20minute map...
Welp, I hit the restart button and we decide to play it smart.
Everyone now runs up the wooded hill on the west part of the map. WetWo goes prone this time around, and removes the hostile grenadiers.
Note that he doesn't yell when firing the MG prone. That's only when he does the macho, predator-move-stance and fire it standing.
The allied officer comes running out from the same bushes as before, this time Loti is on the right side of the map and can engage him with the silenced pistol.
Both Tind and Loti seem mightily pleased with the pretty holes the bullets are making.
They remind me of this lovely woman:
Meanwhile, the SMG toting soldiers from the other side of the map were trying to sneak up on us. I'd stationed dexte and Cappen each in a piece of shrubbery, lying in wait for just such an opportunity.
dexte capitalises on this.
Cappen spots another SMG soldier and decides to try his luck with grenades. Mind you, it's a 2% chance of a direct hit. Any guesses as to how it goes?
Kodex finishes the job with a couple of snapshots. At this range, it'd be a waste of APs to snipe or use aimed/careful shot.
By this point, I'd cleared the map. I thought. So I sent Loti and WetWo running around while in hiding, looking for stragglers.
They found one each.
While looting, Cappen found the last hiding soldier. Unlucky for said soldier, he was only armed with a rifle, while Cappen has his trusty SMG. Those are poor odds, when you decide to reveal your presence only when the enemy is right beside you.
In short, after the initial fuckup, only light wounds were sustained. The documents we pick up detail an upcoming abduction.
Satisfied that we've got what we came for, we loot grenades off the corpses, and a single M1A3 SMG and leave.
This here location looks to be our next target. I have a hunch that mission is going to take a deal longer.
We appear at the edge of a clearing, Stevens told us last that this might be an ambush, and our objectives are hidden to us. Wary, everyone enters hiding, then I make a mistake and split the team..
I spot these two allied mujahedin, bedecked in grenades and decide to make them our priority targets. That might sound wise enough strategically, but I sent Loti and WetWo against them and had the rest of the team looking elsewhere.
WetWo could've handled all alone:
I had at this point sent Loti back and to the other side of the road, supported by Cappen alone. WetWo was making his way through the foliage on the west side of the road when he spotted our quarry.
We just need to take down the officer, grab his documents and then we can leave. Simple, eh?
WetWo lays him low.
Very easy going so far. Only minor wounds sustained. Then I have Loti scout ahead, too far ahead.
*boom*
SMG full auto to the face. She was intercepted by 4 allied soldiers, three of them with SMGs.
Shortly after this, Kodex was painted by two rifle-wielding soldiers, and, well.
I might try to explain this away with being distracted by lower back pain (which wouldn't be untrue), but the sad fact is that I got impatient. Impatient while playing a 20minute map...
Welp, I hit the restart button and we decide to play it smart.
Everyone now runs up the wooded hill on the west part of the map. WetWo goes prone this time around, and removes the hostile grenadiers.
Note that he doesn't yell when firing the MG prone. That's only when he does the macho, predator-move-stance and fire it standing.
The allied officer comes running out from the same bushes as before, this time Loti is on the right side of the map and can engage him with the silenced pistol.
Both Tind and Loti seem mightily pleased with the pretty holes the bullets are making.
They remind me of this lovely woman:
Meanwhile, the SMG toting soldiers from the other side of the map were trying to sneak up on us. I'd stationed dexte and Cappen each in a piece of shrubbery, lying in wait for just such an opportunity.
dexte capitalises on this.
Cappen spots another SMG soldier and decides to try his luck with grenades. Mind you, it's a 2% chance of a direct hit. Any guesses as to how it goes?
Kodex finishes the job with a couple of snapshots. At this range, it'd be a waste of APs to snipe or use aimed/careful shot.
By this point, I'd cleared the map. I thought. So I sent Loti and WetWo running around while in hiding, looking for stragglers.
They found one each.
While looting, Cappen found the last hiding soldier. Unlucky for said soldier, he was only armed with a rifle, while Cappen has his trusty SMG. Those are poor odds, when you decide to reveal your presence only when the enemy is right beside you.
In short, after the initial fuckup, only light wounds were sustained. The documents we pick up detail an upcoming abduction.
Satisfied that we've got what we came for, we loot grenades off the corpses, and a single M1A3 SMG and leave.
This here location looks to be our next target. I have a hunch that mission is going to take a deal longer.
Short, but sweet. Even a simple mission like that I manage to fuck up.
I hope to improve..
Ah, SMGs make great toys...
That depends on what skills and weapons you use the most. 
For WetWo, I'll mostly be using burst weapons, so the skills I choose supplement this.
Otherwise, look at my update #2 (I think), where I linked a description of all skills, including comments from a walkthrough writer.
For WetWo, I'll mostly be using burst weapons, so the skills I choose supplement this.Otherwise, look at my update #2 (I think), where I linked a description of all skills, including comments from a walkthrough writer.
I'm planning for a large update next, comprised of several "side-mission" maps. I've chosen to ignore the flashing map icon for now, and focused on taking the other missions available in northern england. It will be at least 3 maps all rolled up into a single update. Possibly more.
Possibly more.
Bumpti-bumpti
I will be attending a course today, which I foresee will be quite dull. As a result, I believe I will get some time to work on the coming update. It's about 170 screenshots long, and it has 3 videos. 3 mission maps will be cleared, and quite a few random missions will be trawled with the express purpose of finding an elusive japanese suicide squad...
As promised, I got quite a few missions done and completed in the last few days. In the end, our group ended up with a few new toys, and everyone is now level 5.
If you want to know the particulars, please click the spoiler tag to proceed.
There you have it. A nice, big, juicy update. Hope you enjoyed it, I suspect it'll take a little while before I can produce the next. 
If you want to know the particulars, please click the spoiler tag to proceed.
The first mission we tackle is called UK military warehouse:
We're going in blind here in regards to our objectives. We do know though, that we're only out to complete a single one.
The warehouse is a large complex surrounded by a wall. There are two entrances, and our group makes their way towards the rear one.
Almost at the rear gate, Cappen shoots two out of the three soldiers that are on patrol there.
The remaining one, the officer, picks up a grenade dropped by one of the dead soldiers and throws it..
Tind and Cappen are lucky, it seems it was a concussive grenade and not a fragmentation one. This could've been really ugly.
dexte runs up and stops the officer before he gets any more funny ideas.
Just inside the rear gate, we spot another patrol. They're guarding two large warehouse buildings with some chests inside. Hopefully those chests are full of goodies.
Before we can access those goodies though, we'll need to do away with the opposition first. WetWo and dexte open the ball with their MG and grenades, while Kodex keeps the allies busy with long range fire. Kodex being nearly impossible to hit at this range while he's prone, it's a risk-free proposition.
Precise grenade throws are really powerful.
While dexte and WetWo have fun circling the soldiers currently focused on Kodex, Tind and Cappen are overwatching the gate the group entered through. I had the sneaking suspicion that we might be flanked eventually, but that fear turned out to be unfounded.
Loti meanwhile snuck behind the warehouses, in the hopes of luring enemies away one at a time.
This worked beautifully.
Opposite of the two warehouses, but still within the walled compound, stands an office building. WetWo has run behind the train to that building, taking advantage of the cover the walls provide, and lures yet another soldier to his doom.
In the last screenshot, you can just make out the red damage numbers floating over the now recumbent from of the allied soldier. This game cuts dramatically to a closeup when soldiers are laid low. Sometimes the clipping wills it such that they fall behind an obtrusive wall..
With WetWo guarding one flank of the building, dexte sneaks in through a window and finds the investigation clue we're here to get, and another game hint.
A short cut to the other side of the compound, Loti has rounded the second warehouse and is within view of the front gates. There she spots some other allied soldiers, and takes one of them down with her silenced pistol.
With things going so well, I decide to have dexte flank the troops that Kodex and WetWo are pinning in unison.
He crawls out another window to the front of the office building.
He spots not one, but two hostiles directly in front of him. Unwisely, he decides to duke it out. His priority target is the rifle-wielding soldier, as he thinks a pistol is likely to do less damage..
Pistols take much less AP to fire, so in the following allied turn, dexte is knocked unconscious.
The positive thing we take from this is that the kill gave the group enough XP for Kodex to level up..
Kodex continues picking skills that will eventually unlock the "all ranged hits are critical hits".
While having dexte fall unconscious is unfortunate, it definitely won't stop us here. WetWo is quick to avenge him.
From this point on it's a simple matter of cleanup. Kodex takes down the two soldiers at the front gate from long range, meaning they don't get to pose any threat at all. This tactic is key to how you handle tougher opponents later on. Have your scout hide and act as a spotter, then snipe the spotted enemies from afar.
Note that there's actually a tower here, which would work perfectly for a spotter or as a snipers nest. Seems there was indeed a sniper there at some point, but he stupidly decided to leave his post and hide in the trees nearby. It would have worked, had WetWo not found him..
And here's a nice screenshot of WetWo shooting a hole not only in the soldier, but in the wall behind said soldier, launching the body through the hole. Ragdoll physics can be amusing at times.
The rest is simple cleanup, some more gameplay hints, a levelup for Tind and finally picking up the investigation clue.
Boobytraps and mines are two good examples of why you want to bring an engineer. Remember, you can do the same. If you know a patrolling enemy opens a certain door at some point, or walks through a certain corridor, you can trap it if you're quick and stealthy, leading to much Amusement..
Tind's levelups all go towards making her an even more effecient medic. Her role when it comes to firesupport is secondary. She's got a good long-distance rifle that she can take snapshots with, but she rarely does much damage.
The clue links us to the next mission, where we need to find a Mr Weber. With all that wrapped up, Tind hoists dexte over her shoulder and we make to leave.
Well! What do you know, I'd forgotten that we could actually get awarded medals in this game.
Anyhoo, we take a trip back to base to resupply and heal up dexte before the next mission. Here is the team stats:
I'm not going to dwell on the stats for now, they're mostly included so you can see how they progress between missions and with levelling up.
Wasting no time, we plot the course towards A small English town, seeking Mr Weber..
Even though we know, from the investigation clue, that we're seeking Mr Weber, the game refuses to tell us this until we actually find him. If one hadn't been paying attention, one could conceivably be walking around confused on this map for some time, before triggering the right event.
Fortunately, I remember some of this mission, even if it is 9 years ago I played this game last.
First though, we need make a safe landing in this new sector, and a patrol is coming right at us.
Always start a new map by going into hiding. This is my first and most important piece of advice.
Having done this, it's easy to get the first turn, and dexte grenades the first two opponents and WetWo bursts the last with his MG. This also spells a levelup for Cappen.
Trap sense is useful. And it will eventually lead to some quite useful skills dependent on late-game equipment.
This map doesn't hold very many soldiers though, and the sweep is quick and uneventful:
Doing the sweep nets enough xp for Loti and WetWo to levelup.
Loti becomes a stealth runner, and WetWo improves his MG skill.
Killing all allied soldiers does not drop us out of turn based though. Maybe these mysteriously clad people have something to do with that?
Yes. They do. I leave them alone for now though. I find a house where the door to the bathroom is locked. I find that conspicuous, so I have WetWo bring his "lockpick".
On the other side of the door stands a lieutenant. I place WetWo in the door opening and have Kodex open the nearby door and walk through. This triggers a cutscene:
Aha! This is where my meta knowledge paid off. But even more so, I was lucky to get the first turn:
Lead poisoning..
Here's a screenshot of the late lieutenant taking a nap:
Looks peaceful, doesn't he? Now we see Weber has joined our group, and our objectives have been updated.
We could use Weber as a meatshield, but I let him hang back to avoid having to do a reload due to losing him to a freak shot. M:
Then we proceed to clear the town of armed civilians.
The armed civilians are mostly armed with short range weaponry. The only tricky one is one who's hiding in the basement of the house where Weber was. He was carrying this nasty piece of work:
It spits out unholy amounts of lead, and packs a nasty 71 bullets per clip. The only redeeming factor is the short range and relatively low damage per round.
Clearing the town lets dexte level up and improve his grenade skills:
That wraps up the mission.
Kodex gets a well-deserved medal, and we get our next side-mission, a cache.. We didn't sustain any serious wounds, but we still return to base to restock, and there we pick up some new toys for Loti..
Very nifty toys indeed! The pistol is an upgrade in both power and clip size, and a silenced SMG is just plain old Useful.
Here's the character tabs after rescuing Weber:
Steady but slow improvement all over the line.
Still, we do not tarry but set off immediately to investigate the cache Weber briefed us about.
We do not really know what we're here for, but since the allies knew about Weber, we can be sure they also know about this cache..
So we immediately go into hiding and fan out.
WetWo and Loti make contact of the painful sort.
WetWo is in pain and has a desire to share that with someone..
He had some help, as Kodex supplied long range suppressive fire, but one burst from WetWo killed two soldiers at once. Tind rushes to his side and start patching him up, none too soon, for the noise has attracted other hostiles, and these seem to be of a higher level than our team, according to WetWo's comment here.
Tougher adversaries notwithstanding, we're not about to give up and Loti opens with a few pistol shots, that, miraculously, hit despite the range.
Opponent was softened up, but a kill's a kill.
In these shots, WetWo whines because of bleeding, while dexte is busy grenading enemies to death.
WetWo keeps shining though, even when wounded he's deadly with the MG. The soldier class is awesome like this.
Kodex lent a helping hand, but still. Those bursts mean that on average, at least a couple of bullets connect, which is why he's so deadly.
Tiring of WetWo's bleeding and whining, Tind rushes to his side.
She tags another skill that aids in healing, and soon WetWo's bleeding stops. He was close to dropping unconscious.
While Tind is tending to WetWo, dexte and Cappen go on the offensive.
XP earned means Kodex unlocks yet another skill.
Just three more levelups to go before the crit hit skill.
Loti assists dexte and Cappen in flushing out remaining troops, but takes a nasty hit deafening her and reducing her efficiency, so she retreats.
Cowed by these critical wounds, Loti stays hidden in the bushes on the "safe" side of the road while Tind tends to her wounds.
The rest of the mission goes better. Aside from a couple of embarrasing moments involving Kodex and an allied sniper..
WetWo is less than impressed with Kodex' failure to hit, and the hostile sniper replies with a nast 45-VP hit in return.
This slight hiccup aside, the map is cleared, and Loti, WetWo, dexte and Cappen all level up:
dexte's and WetWo's skills are picked to prepare them for a certain "second skin" skill further down the line. Loti gets better at detecting hostile hidden enemies, and Cappen focuses on his trap-setting and -defusing skills.
In the NE part of the map, we find the folder we were looking for.
So, the cache we were risking our lives for is intel hinting at a joint operation between the british and soviet forces. This also means that we've finished all the official objectives in North England, and now one in the Ural mountains is available.
First though, we skedaddle and return to base, casting a final glance at what we learnt here.
More medals! We're really becoming noticed in the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht!
Before actually heading for the base, we just take a quick look at the Ural mission description..
Hmmm... We'll let this one sit for now.
Now, again I go meta-gamey on you. I know there's a special random encounter that we can get in North England. I also know that we cannot get said encounter before we're level 5. Which we are now. I also know that it's dangerous as fuck to do that encounter at our current level, but the reward is also good.
So guess what we're going to do now?
That's right. It's time to go Random Encounter Trawling.
First though, there are some new toys available back at the base.
As a rule, whenever new toys become available, you can count on them being upgrades. The panzerfaust is just the icing here. The MG and new sniper rifles are both upgrades, the rifle arguably being the biggest. The bigger clip on the MG coupled with extra clips only taking up 1 space in the inventory as opposed to 2 for the previous MG also makes that a comfortable upgrade.
We will be getting better equipment than this further down the line though.
For now, we let dexte stock up on grenades, so he brings 10 fragmentation grenades with him when we go RET'ing.
First though, we go to the North England map. I know the encounter we're looking for is in the bottom left quarter of the map, but nothing more precise than that.
A visible enemy right from the get-go? Nope, that's not the right map. We hide and leave.
The next RE is a repeat of the one above. Leave and try again.
This one isn't the one I'm looking for either, but I had some fun blowing up a truck, so I wanted to share it with you people.
I think I spent about an hour on this map getting normal REs before this one finally appeared:
I only just managed to hit the screencap key before the map loaded.
Yeesss.. A seemingly innocent bend in the road, no enemies in sight. Now, this doesn't seem at all like a trap, does it?
Quickly, engage cloak!
Problem is, they're on both sides of the road, they also start out hidden, and their spot skill is much better than ours. Also, look at their uniforms and designation. These are no ordinary allied troopers, these are "Renegade Soldiers"!!
Ruh-roh. Better play it safe and blast them with everything we got! You can also see they already took a good chunk out of our medic's health, and she's the only one carrying first aid items...
Lucky for us, grenades and bullets still cause the normal amounts of damage. At least these suckers aren't mystically shielded.
For some odd reason, they only attack with thrown weaponry. They always open with a grenade (concussive it seems), then follow up by throwing... Shuriken?!?
You can see them littering the ground here near a downed Renegade. WetWo also seems to think that our level 5 is higher than their level. I'm not too convinced.. But we proceed cautiously, usually leading by grenade and MG fire.
And they reply in kind with grenades of their own, sometimes (thankfully) missing.
That one almost hit Loti square on, but luckily caught on the branches of the tree.. Loti get's a skillup of some point here, evasion possibly:
Meanwhile, dexte spams grenades.
This is why I had him bring 10 of them.
Loti tried to shoot a Renegade with her silenced pistol, believing herself to be safe from discovery.
Safe she remains for now, as she has a friendly sniper helping her out.
Still more enemies appear, one grenades flies high, the other...
Direct hit! WetWo gets off lucky and is only knocked unconscious.. Yet, this goes to see these Renegades are no joking matter. He went from full health to unconscious in one direct hit.
Then we proceed with some succes, one moment spamming 'nades, the other sniping.
Everything is going so good in fact, I get the feeling there's almost no more enemies left. Loti takes a few steps forward, acting as a spotter and...
*boom* Grenade out of nowhere, and there's now two unconscious soldiers of ours..
That enemy turned out to actually be the last one of the ordinary Renegades.
Now, the "leave" icon is still not green, meaning there's at least one more hostile on the map.
And he's somewhere in this part of the map, as our hidden soldiers are spotted when they go here and turn based is forced upon us until we leave and go hidden again. Yet, I cannot spot the enemy. Spent half an hour running all over the place trying to get a succesful spot roll to no avail.
Then I started to throw grenades at likely spots.
Nope, nothing there.
(several more grenade 'splosions not shown)
Then
Bingo! For some odd reason, even when unconscious, the leader stays hidden. But he drops his weapon...
The ultimate melee weapon.
Here're the stats for the shuriken:
Now, since I haven't had Loti go around whiffling people to death with throwing knives, I cannot tell if these are actually superior, but the bonus to crit chance looks OK I guess? As to the katana, the hitherto best melee weapon does around 12-30 damage, so the katana is definitely an improvement.
With all the loot collected and Tind and dexte carrying our unconscious bros, we leave the area.
dexte even got some recognition for all that grenade spamming.
Here are the soldier stats, medal tab included, to end this update:
We're going in blind here in regards to our objectives. We do know though, that we're only out to complete a single one.
The warehouse is a large complex surrounded by a wall. There are two entrances, and our group makes their way towards the rear one.
Almost at the rear gate, Cappen shoots two out of the three soldiers that are on patrol there.
The remaining one, the officer, picks up a grenade dropped by one of the dead soldiers and throws it..
Tind and Cappen are lucky, it seems it was a concussive grenade and not a fragmentation one. This could've been really ugly.
dexte runs up and stops the officer before he gets any more funny ideas.
Just inside the rear gate, we spot another patrol. They're guarding two large warehouse buildings with some chests inside. Hopefully those chests are full of goodies.
Before we can access those goodies though, we'll need to do away with the opposition first. WetWo and dexte open the ball with their MG and grenades, while Kodex keeps the allies busy with long range fire. Kodex being nearly impossible to hit at this range while he's prone, it's a risk-free proposition.
Precise grenade throws are really powerful.
While dexte and WetWo have fun circling the soldiers currently focused on Kodex, Tind and Cappen are overwatching the gate the group entered through. I had the sneaking suspicion that we might be flanked eventually, but that fear turned out to be unfounded.
Loti meanwhile snuck behind the warehouses, in the hopes of luring enemies away one at a time.
This worked beautifully.
Opposite of the two warehouses, but still within the walled compound, stands an office building. WetWo has run behind the train to that building, taking advantage of the cover the walls provide, and lures yet another soldier to his doom.
In the last screenshot, you can just make out the red damage numbers floating over the now recumbent from of the allied soldier. This game cuts dramatically to a closeup when soldiers are laid low. Sometimes the clipping wills it such that they fall behind an obtrusive wall..
With WetWo guarding one flank of the building, dexte sneaks in through a window and finds the investigation clue we're here to get, and another game hint.
A short cut to the other side of the compound, Loti has rounded the second warehouse and is within view of the front gates. There she spots some other allied soldiers, and takes one of them down with her silenced pistol.
With things going so well, I decide to have dexte flank the troops that Kodex and WetWo are pinning in unison.
He crawls out another window to the front of the office building.
He spots not one, but two hostiles directly in front of him. Unwisely, he decides to duke it out. His priority target is the rifle-wielding soldier, as he thinks a pistol is likely to do less damage..
Pistols take much less AP to fire, so in the following allied turn, dexte is knocked unconscious.
The positive thing we take from this is that the kill gave the group enough XP for Kodex to level up..
Kodex continues picking skills that will eventually unlock the "all ranged hits are critical hits".
While having dexte fall unconscious is unfortunate, it definitely won't stop us here. WetWo is quick to avenge him.
From this point on it's a simple matter of cleanup. Kodex takes down the two soldiers at the front gate from long range, meaning they don't get to pose any threat at all. This tactic is key to how you handle tougher opponents later on. Have your scout hide and act as a spotter, then snipe the spotted enemies from afar.
Note that there's actually a tower here, which would work perfectly for a spotter or as a snipers nest. Seems there was indeed a sniper there at some point, but he stupidly decided to leave his post and hide in the trees nearby. It would have worked, had WetWo not found him..
And here's a nice screenshot of WetWo shooting a hole not only in the soldier, but in the wall behind said soldier, launching the body through the hole. Ragdoll physics can be amusing at times.
The rest is simple cleanup, some more gameplay hints, a levelup for Tind and finally picking up the investigation clue.
Boobytraps and mines are two good examples of why you want to bring an engineer.
Remember, you can do the same. If you know a patrolling enemy opens a certain door at some point, or walks through a certain corridor, you can trap it if you're quick and stealthy, leading to much Amusement..
Tind's levelups all go towards making her an even more effecient medic. Her role when it comes to firesupport is secondary. She's got a good long-distance rifle that she can take snapshots with, but she rarely does much damage.
The clue links us to the next mission, where we need to find a Mr Weber. With all that wrapped up, Tind hoists dexte over her shoulder and we make to leave.
Well! What do you know, I'd forgotten that we could actually get awarded medals in this game.
Anyhoo, we take a trip back to base to resupply and heal up dexte before the next mission. Here is the team stats:
I'm not going to dwell on the stats for now, they're mostly included so you can see how they progress between missions and with levelling up.
Wasting no time, we plot the course towards A small English town, seeking Mr Weber..
Even though we know, from the investigation clue, that we're seeking Mr Weber, the game refuses to tell us this until we actually find him.
If one hadn't been paying attention, one could conceivably be walking around confused on this map for some time, before triggering the right event.Fortunately, I remember some of this mission, even if it is 9 years ago I played this game last.
First though, we need make a safe landing in this new sector, and a patrol is coming right at us.
Always start a new map by going into hiding. This is my first and most important piece of advice.
Having done this, it's easy to get the first turn, and dexte grenades the first two opponents and WetWo bursts the last with his MG. This also spells a levelup for Cappen.
Trap sense is useful. And it will eventually lead to some quite useful skills dependent on late-game equipment.
This map doesn't hold very many soldiers though, and the sweep is quick and uneventful:
Doing the sweep nets enough xp for Loti and WetWo to levelup.
Loti becomes a stealth runner, and WetWo improves his MG skill.
Killing all allied soldiers does not drop us out of turn based though. Maybe these mysteriously clad people have something to do with that?
Yes. They do. I leave them alone for now though. I find a house where the door to the bathroom is locked. I find that conspicuous, so I have WetWo bring his "lockpick".
On the other side of the door stands a lieutenant. I place WetWo in the door opening and have Kodex open the nearby door and walk through. This triggers a cutscene:
Aha! This is where my meta knowledge paid off. But even more so, I was lucky to get the first turn:
Lead poisoning..
Here's a screenshot of the late lieutenant taking a nap:
Looks peaceful, doesn't he?
Now we see Weber has joined our group, and our objectives have been updated.
We could use Weber as a meatshield, but I let him hang back to avoid having to do a reload due to losing him to a freak shot. M:
Then we proceed to clear the town of armed civilians.
The armed civilians are mostly armed with short range weaponry. The only tricky one is one who's hiding in the basement of the house where Weber was. He was carrying this nasty piece of work:
It spits out unholy amounts of lead, and packs a nasty 71 bullets per clip. The only redeeming factor is the short range and relatively low damage per round.
Clearing the town lets dexte level up and improve his grenade skills:
That wraps up the mission.
Kodex gets a well-deserved medal, and we get our next side-mission, a cache.. We didn't sustain any serious wounds, but we still return to base to restock, and there we pick up some new toys for Loti..
Very nifty toys indeed! The pistol is an upgrade in both power and clip size, and a silenced SMG is just plain old Useful.
Here's the character tabs after rescuing Weber:
Steady but slow improvement all over the line.
Still, we do not tarry but set off immediately to investigate the cache Weber briefed us about.
We do not really know what we're here for, but since the allies knew about Weber, we can be sure they also know about this cache..
So we immediately go into hiding and fan out.
WetWo and Loti make contact of the painful sort.
WetWo is in pain and has a desire to share that with someone..
He had some help, as Kodex supplied long range suppressive fire, but one burst from WetWo killed two soldiers at once. Tind rushes to his side and start patching him up, none too soon, for the noise has attracted other hostiles, and these seem to be of a higher level than our team, according to WetWo's comment here.
Tougher adversaries notwithstanding, we're not about to give up and Loti opens with a few pistol shots, that, miraculously, hit despite the range.
Opponent was softened up, but a kill's a kill.
In these shots, WetWo whines because of bleeding, while dexte is busy grenading enemies to death.
WetWo keeps shining though, even when wounded he's deadly with the MG. The soldier class is awesome like this.
Kodex lent a helping hand, but still. Those bursts mean that on average, at least a couple of bullets connect, which is why he's so deadly.
Tiring of WetWo's bleeding and whining, Tind rushes to his side.
She tags another skill that aids in healing, and soon WetWo's bleeding stops. He was close to dropping unconscious.
While Tind is tending to WetWo, dexte and Cappen go on the offensive.
XP earned means Kodex unlocks yet another skill.
Just three more levelups to go before the crit hit skill.
Loti assists dexte and Cappen in flushing out remaining troops, but takes a nasty hit deafening her and reducing her efficiency, so she retreats.
Cowed by these critical wounds, Loti stays hidden in the bushes on the "safe" side of the road while Tind tends to her wounds.
The rest of the mission goes better. Aside from a couple of embarrasing moments involving Kodex and an allied sniper..
WetWo is less than impressed with Kodex' failure to hit, and the hostile sniper replies with a nast 45-VP hit in return.
This slight hiccup aside, the map is cleared, and Loti, WetWo, dexte and Cappen all level up:
dexte's and WetWo's skills are picked to prepare them for a certain "second skin" skill further down the line. Loti gets better at detecting hostile hidden enemies, and Cappen focuses on his trap-setting and -defusing skills.
In the NE part of the map, we find the folder we were looking for.
So, the cache we were risking our lives for is intel hinting at a joint operation between the british and soviet forces. This also means that we've finished all the official objectives in North England, and now one in the Ural mountains is available.
First though, we skedaddle and return to base, casting a final glance at what we learnt here.
More medals! We're really becoming noticed in the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht!
Before actually heading for the base, we just take a quick look at the Ural mission description..
Hmmm... We'll let this one sit for now.
Now, again I go meta-gamey on you. I know there's a special random encounter that we can get in North England. I also know that we cannot get said encounter before we're level 5. Which we are now. I also know that it's dangerous as fuck to do that encounter at our current level, but the reward is also good.
So guess what we're going to do now?
That's right. It's time to go Random Encounter Trawling.
First though, there are some new toys available back at the base.
As a rule, whenever new toys become available, you can count on them being upgrades. The panzerfaust is just the icing here.
The MG and new sniper rifles are both upgrades, the rifle arguably being the biggest. The bigger clip on the MG coupled with extra clips only taking up 1 space in the inventory as opposed to 2 for the previous MG also makes that a comfortable upgrade.We will be getting better equipment than this further down the line though.
For now, we let dexte stock up on grenades, so he brings 10 fragmentation grenades with him when we go RET'ing.
First though, we go to the North England map. I know the encounter we're looking for is in the bottom left quarter of the map, but nothing more precise than that.
A visible enemy right from the get-go? Nope, that's not the right map. We hide and leave.
The next RE is a repeat of the one above. Leave and try again.
This one isn't the one I'm looking for either, but I had some fun blowing up a truck, so I wanted to share it with you people.
I think I spent about an hour on this map getting normal REs before this one finally appeared:
I only just managed to hit the screencap key before the map loaded.
Yeesss.. A seemingly innocent bend in the road, no enemies in sight. Now, this doesn't seem at all like a trap, does it?
Quickly, engage cloak!
Problem is, they're on both sides of the road, they also start out hidden, and their spot skill is much better than ours. Also, look at their uniforms and designation. These are no ordinary allied troopers, these are "Renegade Soldiers"!!
Ruh-roh. Better play it safe and blast them with everything we got! You can also see they already took a good chunk out of our medic's health, and she's the only one carrying first aid items...
Lucky for us, grenades and bullets still cause the normal amounts of damage. At least these suckers aren't mystically shielded.
For some odd reason, they only attack with thrown weaponry. They always open with a grenade (concussive it seems), then follow up by throwing... Shuriken?!?
You can see them littering the ground here near a downed Renegade. WetWo also seems to think that our level 5 is higher than their level. I'm not too convinced.. But we proceed cautiously, usually leading by grenade and MG fire.
And they reply in kind with grenades of their own, sometimes (thankfully) missing.
That one almost hit Loti square on, but luckily caught on the branches of the tree.. Loti get's a skillup of some point here, evasion possibly:
Meanwhile, dexte spams grenades.
This is why I had him bring 10 of them.
Loti tried to shoot a Renegade with her silenced pistol, believing herself to be safe from discovery.
Safe she remains for now, as she has a friendly sniper helping her out.
Still more enemies appear, one grenades flies high, the other...
Direct hit! WetWo gets off lucky and is only knocked unconscious.. Yet, this goes to see these Renegades are no joking matter. He went from full health to unconscious in one direct hit.
Then we proceed with some succes, one moment spamming 'nades, the other sniping.
Everything is going so good in fact, I get the feeling there's almost no more enemies left. Loti takes a few steps forward, acting as a spotter and...
*boom* Grenade out of nowhere, and there's now two unconscious soldiers of ours..
That enemy turned out to actually be the last one of the ordinary Renegades.
Now, the "leave" icon is still not green, meaning there's at least one more hostile on the map.
And he's somewhere in this part of the map, as our hidden soldiers are spotted when they go here and turn based is forced upon us until we leave and go hidden again. Yet, I cannot spot the enemy. Spent half an hour running all over the place trying to get a succesful spot roll to no avail.
Then I started to throw grenades at likely spots.
Nope, nothing there.
(several more grenade 'splosions not shown)
Then
Bingo! For some odd reason, even when unconscious, the leader stays hidden. But he drops his weapon...
The ultimate melee weapon.
Here're the stats for the shuriken:
Now, since I haven't had Loti go around whiffling people to death with throwing knives, I cannot tell if these are actually superior, but the bonus to crit chance looks OK I guess? As to the katana, the hitherto best melee weapon does around 12-30 damage, so the katana is definitely an improvement.
With all the loot collected and Tind and dexte carrying our unconscious bros, we leave the area.
dexte even got some recognition for all that grenade spamming.
Here are the soldier stats, medal tab included, to end this update:
There you have it. A nice, big, juicy update.
Hope you enjoyed it, I suspect it'll take a little while before I can produce the next.
Bee is the only other codexer that volounteered, and she has yet to pick a preferred class. And so far, soldiers have just fallen unconscious. There is a possibility of death as well, if enough damage is caused.
So far we've been lucky.
Though, if more people volounteered, I'd do rotation as you suggest. As is, I don't have many more codexers to choose between.
Wait, in actuality, I could exchange dexte for UncleJ. Probably should, as dexte has been unconscious..
So far we've been lucky.
Though, if more people volounteered, I'd do rotation as you suggest. As is, I don't have many more codexers to choose between.
Wait, in actuality, I could exchange dexte for UncleJ. Probably should, as dexte has been unconscious..
I finally caught up with all your LPs Azira. Stellar work I must say. 
Let's add my name to the roster ofmeat puppets recruits. Scout preferred but anything will do. I just couldn't bring myself to play with PKs activated so let's see how it goes.
Let's add my name to the roster of
A scout you will have. Phelot was complaining I didn't rotate enough, and seeing as Loti was knocked unconscious in the last battle, it seems he will have his wish. Your scout will supplant his for the next match, then I guess Loti will be back, due to the pledge I made earlier (making Loti a shoe-in in recognition of the work he put into renaming the hirables). I'd say a day of bedrest would do Loti good in any case.
Phelot was complaining I didn't rotate enough, and seeing as Loti was knocked unconscious in the last battle, it seems he will have his wish. Your scout will supplant his for the next match, then I guess Loti will be back, due to the pledge I made earlier (making Loti a shoe-in in recognition of the work he put into renaming the hirables). I'd say a day of bedrest would do Loti good in any case. 
dextermorgan
Arcane
Roster has been updated with the latest volounteers. I will probably let all the new ones in on the next mission, to cause some friendly and healthy competition, even if Cappen hasn't been knocked unconscious yet.
I still haven't heard from Crooked Bee if she has any preferences when it comes to character class or even gender representation, but I'm tempted to either let her be a male soldier, or this guy, because of his last name:
I will probably let all the new ones in on the next mission, to cause some friendly and healthy competition, even if Cappen hasn't been knocked unconscious yet. I still haven't heard from Crooked Bee if she has any preferences when it comes to character class or even gender representation, but I'm tempted to either let her be a male soldier, or this guy, because of his last name:
Oops. Yeah, why not be a male for a change 
Name him Justin Beeber, and we're good
(Also, I need to catch up on this LP a bit, have been really reaaly busy lately, sorry.)
Name him Justin Beeber, and we're good
(Also, I need to catch up on this LP a bit, have been really reaaly busy lately, sorry.)
The_scorpion
Liturgist
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2006
- Messages
- 1,056
"Scheimschieber"?? o_O
translators ftw
translators ftw
Eh. Updated the roster to show the current stats. As you can see, the three fresh faces I've included (sorry Bee, you'll get your time, but we already had another replacement engineer) are 2 levels behind our A-group, and what's even worse is their skillpoints are already spent, meaning my plan for how to build them is slightly shot. Not by much yet, seeing as they're only level 3, it's only 2 skillpoints they've got allocated each, but it's still a bother. This means I will be switching back to the A-team after the next mission, and then only switch to the others if I have a death. Yes, deaths can occur instead of unconsciousness, it depends on the amount of damage dealt.
If I choose to also do an allied run, the people who signed up for this one, but didn't make it to the A-team will be first in line for the allied LP as compensation.
If I choose to also do an allied run, the people who signed up for this one, but didn't make it to the A-team will be first in line for the allied LP as compensation.
Woo boy, update will be a while. Played the next mission, kent got knocked out which shouldn't be a big deal, but for some reason the katana vanished completely. Didn't appear anywhere on the map, and was gone from his inventory as well. Will have to replay mission. 
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